True Crime: IRS Targeted My Family For Over 4 Months Due To Tea Party Ties

I suffer in silence.  Its not a virtue, its not heroic.  Maybe it comes from years of Trauma Nursing at USC Medical Center, where stabbings and gunshots are known as a “regular Friday night”.  Maybe, (and yes I’m going to bare my soul here) maybe,  its from one Friday night in May 1995.  It was my husband, Deputy Stephen Blair, who sustained gunshots, which claimed his life.  His life, given in service to Los Angeles County, given, as he believed, ultimately for a Country where freedom and justice reigned.  I remember my thoughts that night.   Although he was not in the Military, he patrolled South Central LA, its own war zone.  I thought, he died knowing his sacrifice meant something.  That our sons would know it meant something.  That our great Nation’s way of life at times extacts that price.

After Obama was elected, and that other day of doom,  the day the National Health Care bill passed, I felt called to act.  Up until that point, I devoted my life to raising my 3 sons, I remarried (a Police Detective), and was in no way “political”.   I realized what the “Healthcare” nightmare would mean, and I joined a local Tea Party.  I became extremely active, setting up the websites, funding much of the expenses, and was listed as the “Public Relations/ Internet Coordinator.

I started writing articles that were picked up by some well known Conservative websites– a scathing expose on Loretta Sanchez, and a follow-up on my experiences as a Co-Manager for Star Parker’s 2010 bid for Congress– which made it onto HotAir. My articles started to circulate, as I found my voice, always fact based, but with just a tad hint of sarcasm & tomfoolery….something different.  I’d like to thank Anita MonCrief for giving me start on her website Emerging Corruption.  (I am relating all this history as it may shed light on what is to follow.)

In 2010, I started my Blog Talk Radio show, which grew into a “Radio Network” called “Fidelis Radio Network”.  Blessed with a few other Conservative voices, Fidelis averaged over 200,000 listens a month.  Fidelis also had Catholic programming.  As of December 2012, we aired 3 “Conservative Politics” talk shows and 3 “Conservative” Catholic talk shows.  As we grew we attracted some “big named” interviews.  We had plans to expand in 2013.

What a recipe for “disaster”—-Tea Party type folks and Catholics, exactly the mix the Obama Administration “loves” the most.  Those darn Catholics and their non-compliance with providing abortions and birth control.  And those backwater Tea Party hicks, always ranting about their “free speech” while carrying AK47’s around.

Sometime at the end of January, or beginning of February, a funny thing happened.

My husband’s direct deposit pay which is approximately 1600 every 2 weeks was garnished—–and I mean garnished.  Confused and alarmed, his Human Resources Department said it was the IRS.  The IRS? Huh? What?

We never received any correspondence prior– as in “Hello, unless you pay we will start to garnish your wages”.     We usually get a tax return.  His pay was garnished so that we netted 365.00 every 2 weeks.

Luckily, my husband is a “Retired Detective” who receives a pension.   He took a job after retirement  for a firm which needed experienced top professionals in security— for one purpose—to ensure my sons, his step-sons, could finish College.

It had to be a mistake.  This garnishment….what else could it be?  I tried without success to reach a “live” person at the IRS.  And stupid me.  I kept thinking—watch—-his next paycheck will be “right”.  But the HR Department never received any paperwork to stop it.  I STILL thought, I KNEW, its a clerical error somewhere, and I kept calling.  One time on hold for over 3 hours.

Our lives changed drastically.  Just like Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, my focus was food and shelter.  And getting our sons to their classes.  That was the one thing I could not, would not, allow to change.  My middle son was scheduled to graduate in May 2013, my youngest son was in his Junior year.

So, as I do in a crisis, I tried to just focus on food and shelter.  No internet, no TV, no cell phones.  Little by little all the things many of us take for granted had to go.  And then I got through.  YES, about a week before the whole IRS story “broke” a live person was on the phone with me.

After I gave our Social Security numbers, the “minion” placed me on hold to get a Supervisor.  The Supervisor was completely apologetic! (HUH? the IRS acting somewhat human?)

“OH, mam, yes we have your file here, and while you are on the phone, as we speak, I am faxing directly to your husband’s Human Resource Department to lift this….right away…hold on….its going through.  Yes, there.  Now give them a call to make sure.”

Shocked, and elated, I asked few questions.  At this point I was suffering from exhaustion, depression, shell shock.

I asked “Well, can you tell me why this “snafu” occured?” Silence for about 30 seconds.  Then “Hmmm, its odd, looks like your return was “flagged” for something….not sure why, but its fixed now and you should not expect anymore issues.”

When the IRS story broke, it still didn’t fit until I remembered in January my accountant filed Fidelis Radio as a start-up business, a Conservative Radio Network— so we could write off the expenses.

Then, something even stranger happened.  My domain name (www.fidelisradio.com) expired on April 11, 2013.  ON that same day a “Japanese Firm” bought the domain.  It makes no sense.  We are looking into who these people are and just why and how they would want that domain.  Its of no value except to me.  One would have to be tracking that domain name, c’mon, its no “nike.com”.

The IRS is stating that they “double taxed” us.  When my husband medically retired (he sustained many injuries after being hit by a truck pursuing a armed felon), we received a settlement.  Less than 50,000, this was back in 2009, and we paid the required tax. But that’s their story and they are sticking to it.

I want to apologize for just “dropping” off the face of the earth.  See, it was the only way I could cope.  Only way I could get through it.  In hindsight, I am left with the knowledge of our Country’s demise.  Like Nazi Germany in 1938, you look the other way.  You keep your mouth shut, or it will be shut for you.  We are fed pathetic excuses and unreal propaganda so we can sleep at night.  We may not have the “gold stars” on our coats, but they are there just the same.  Grassroots Conservatives are “little fish” they say.  Why would we bother with a Mom who does a Radio Show and writes a few internet articles?  Even to this writer it sounds  ludicrous.

Ludicrous, right?  That’s what the Liberals say.

We understand there is a price extacted from time to time for our freedoms.  We understand that price.  We are willing, we are able, we are ready, when fate calls our name.  It’s not our strength which carries us through this struggle—we know the strength to endure comes from God.

And that is what they fear.  Truth.  When you speak the truth, there are no “little fish”—make no mistake, the truth always comes out, and that truth will set America free.   Our battle begins, again.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

God Bless You All & God Bless America

PS–My son did graduate in May— with a BA in Criminal Justice and a Minor in Political Science.  He will become a Police Officer, just like his Dad and Step-Dad.